National football teams can be ranked by their average Elo score

World Football Elo Ratings

The World Football Elo Ratings is a ranking system for men's national teams in association football. The method used to rank teams is based upon the Elo rating system method but modified to take various football-specific variables into account...

s over time periods, following similar approaches in for example chess. The averages over time are calculated from the scores on the World Football Elo Ratings web site.

Strongest teams since the mid to late 1960s

Based on the average Elo score from January 1, 1970 to December 1, 2011. As the Elo scores reflect the previous successes of a team, the list probably displays the relative strengths of national teams since the mid to late 1960s. Before this time intercontinental play was fairly limited and many nations in Africa, North America, and Asia had played too few games yet to create a representative Elo score. Strong "short-lived" or young countries like East Germany and Croatia are not in this list, but can occur in the tables below showing the top teams per decade.

EWLINE Rank Country Average Elo rating 1 2009.9 2 1972.2 3 1925.2 4 1922.5 5 1920.9 6 1898.8 7 1898.4 8 1883.3 9 1853.5 10 1837.0 11 1824.1 12 1813.2 13 1796.3 14 1785.6 15 1778.7 16 1771.3 17 1765.4 18 1762.2 19 1756.9 20 1743.8 21 1727.6 22 1720.6 23 1713.6 24 1709.6 25 1693.6

EWLINE Rank Country Average Elo rating 26 1692.9 27 1687.3 28 1680.6 29 1675.3 30 1673.1 31 1662.0 32 1658.2 33 1652.7 34 1650.6 35 1650.3 36 1648.3 37 1645.0 38 1640.1 39 1640.0 40 1635.1 41 1631.0 42 1627.4 43 1620.0 44 1606.6 45 1604.3 46 1597.9 47 1594.2 48 1591.9 49 1580.2 50 1570.9

Strongest teams per decade

The table below shows the teams with the best average Elo score per decade (Jan 1 19X0 - Dec 31 19X9). Again, because the scores reflect past achievements, the averages are representative of the teams' strengths for a decade starting and ending sometimes a few years earlier.

Rank	1910s		1920s		1930s		1940s		1950s
1	1936		1911		1976		2036		2025
2	1899		1873		1970		2018		1996
3	1879		1859		1899		1892		1994
4	1800		1843		1868		1876		1917
5	1772		1820		1866		1858		1870
6	1755		1795		1859		1852		1856
7	1754		1771		1841		1841		1853
8	1737		1768		1814		1832		1850
9	1659		1761		1810		1814		1817
10	1652		1760		1785		1768		1815
11	1603		1739		1759		1764		1799
12	1574		1712		1685		1746		1796
13						|1734		1790
14								|1753
15								|1728

Rank	1960s		1970s		1980s		1990s		2000s
1	1962		2059		1974		1998		1998
2	1928		2040		1964		1988		1983
3	1923		1948		1950		1951		1966
4	1923		1933		1927		1928		1964
5	1917		1888		1897		1920		1954
6	1887		1883		1889		1904		1941
7	1867		1877		1884		1901		1915
8	1852		1868		1884		1901		1890
9	1843		1861		1847		1869		1886
10	1840		1851		1839		1868		1872
11	1811		1838		1820		1842		1837
12	1801		1831		1819		1834		1824
13	1796		1830		1818		1828		1820
14	1783		1808		1803		1825		1807
15	1740		1802		1785		1825		1799
16	1735		1792		1784		1812		1790
17	1732		1770		1783		1810		1786
18	1731		1766		1776		1784		1785
19	1725		1765		1774		1776		1782
20	1722		1755		1773		1773		1773

Source

• World Football Elo ratings